


Smile For The Dark And It Won't Tell The Light

by psyduckappears



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Also Reggie has a sister in this, Angst, Fighting, First Kiss, Getting Together, Heartbreaking bullshit, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, Luke gives him one, M/M, Non-explicit domestic violence, Please Don't Hate Me, Reggie deserves Luke tbh, Reggie deserves better, Reggie needs a hug, Reggie's parents are horrible people, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, as in Reggie gets hit with something, me projecting, mostly lots of Luke being the sweetest, not graphic, some blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:54:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27442246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psyduckappears/pseuds/psyduckappears
Summary: Reggie was tired. Tired of struggling through school, tired of everyone's expectations, tired of his parents, who fight so much that it was a miracle they got anything done. Most of all, he was tired of himself. He would have long fled the place, probably, had there not been his little sister, Ellie.On a night like so many others, his parents were fighting again. Not for the first time, he stepped in, if only so that Ellie could finally go to sleep. It seemed, however, that he had gotten in the way one too many times.With blood dripping from his forehead and a backpack of clothes, he didn't know where else to go but to Luke.Or: the one where Reggie cracks like glass, and Luke teaches him how to mend the broken pieces.
Relationships: Luke Patterson/Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 340





	Smile For The Dark And It Won't Tell The Light

**Author's Note:**

> to be completely honest I binged this show completely ironically *after* already having gone 38 hours without sleep, and I have no idea how I ever thought I wasn't going to end up completely obsessed with all of these characters, no matter how much I do not buy the whole 'death by food poisoning' thing.
> 
> anyway, Reggie is a bisexual icon who's attracted to more genders than he has brain cells, thus I relate to him too much, thus I project all my personal issues unto him. comments and kudos as always greatly appreciated (as in, I will scream, please, I love comments so much especially just asdckudgleifeih feelings)
> 
> WARNING: this is cheesy as heck
> 
> thanks @chilsninkio for reading over this and pointing out things that didn't make sense bc my brain sometimes just doesn't work like it should, even though you're not even in this fandom (...yet)

The sun hadn’t quite set by the time they started. An hour had passed since they had all sat at the dinner table, exchanging uncomfortable small talk, and now, Reggie was up in his room, bent over his desk in a desperate attempt to catch up on his math coursework. He was ridiculously behind, and he had no idea what was going on, no matter how many times he read over the passage in his textbook. Math. He hated math. _Maybe_ , he thought for the billionth time, _I should just quit school._ His desk chair creaked when he leant back in it to let out a huff of air and run a hand through his hair. It had already gotten too long again, but he wasn’t going to ask his parents for the money to have it cut, and there was no version of this where he would let his mother near him with a pair of scissors with the mood she had been in lately. The others could pull off the longer hair, so if he was lucky, maybe it would work for him as well. 

Rising voices pulled him from his mess of thought, and he sighed almost by default. It was the third time this week that his parents were starting a fight, and it was only Thursday. Over the course of a couple of minutes, in which Reggie determinedly stared down at his math book, hoping to convince the words to make sense, the voices rose to shouts, and before he knew it, there was a tentative knock on his bedroom door.

“Yeah?”

When the door opened, it revealed his sister, Ellie, clutching the handle with one hand and the hem of her sleep shirt with the other. The look on her face broke his heart. He had been doing this for seventeen years, and he wasn’t really used to it yet. She was only nine.

“Hey there,” Reggie said over the back of his chair. He cast her the smile that would still claim everything was right in the world when it was falling apart around him. When she was standing there like this, he almost forgot how annoying she could be during daytime. He waved her inside, and she closed the door behind her. “Can’t sleep?”

“They’re yelling again,” Ellie said through a shake of her head. “Do they hate each other?”

If he was completely honest, Reggie knew that was much closer to the truth that he would have liked for it to be. With the things he had heard them say to each other, the way he’d seen them treat each other, it was a miracle they were still together. Or, a curse. Still. He had wondered the same things at her age, and he knew she didn’t really want the truth. “No. Of course not.”

His mother’s voice echoed through the hallway, a string of swears and insults Reggie wasn’t sure _he_ was old enough to hear. They were still in the kitchen, from the sound of it, which could or could not have been a good sign. Sometimes, they wandered from one room to another while fighting, wrecking everything in their path. Others, they stood still, until the tension in the room began to shake violently.

It was no use. Left to themselves, this would go on all night, and Ellie wouldn’t sleep for a minute, and then her teachers would call again when she fell asleep in class, and _then_ both he and her would get in trouble because she hadn’t slept enough. A look at the time revealed it was almost nine. Thursday evening. _The third time this week_. Reggie got out of his chair, messed up Ellie’s hair in passing, and said with another bright grin at her annoyance, “Go back to bed. I’ll make sure they make up.”

He watched as Ellie went back to her own room before he turned his back on her and walked slowly towards the kitchen. The voices got louder with every step. There was no describing how much he didn’t want to do this again, over and over, but he couldn’t leave his sister hanging.

When he stepped into the kitchen, he found his parents standing on opposite ends of the table, red in the face, staring intensely at each other as they screamed over one another. There were still some dishes left from dinner sitting on the table, which meant this had been going on for a while, if quieter. Reggie cleared his throat, but the volume of their fight made it impossible to hear him even if they had wanted to. It was another feeling he would never get used to, this standing unseen in the middle of the room, this not knowing what to say or what to do with his hands. In this house, he was only visible when others chose for him to be. When they did, it was never good.

“Hey,” he started. They didn’t even pause to look at him, so he took another step forward. There were still a couple of feet between him and the table, but walking closer felt like walking against the current.

“I don’t _believe_ I’m still putting up with this!” his mother was shouting at his father.

“It’s late,” Reggie said. “Maybe you should –“

“Shut up,” his father interrupted him. He didn’t even turn.

Every nerve in his body was telling him to let it go, just get back to his room and get Ellie a pair of earplugs tomorrow. Yesterday had gone well, though, and so had Monday evening. Maybe all it needed was a reminder of their little daughter trying to sleep down the hall. They always had taken kindlier to her than they had to him when he was younger. He had to try, at least.

“I think it would be good if you –“

Again, he didn’t get to finish his sentence. The sharp pain came only moments after the glass had made contact with his head, delayed by the shock. It fell to the floor and shattered into pieces. Only the shrill noise of breaking glass seemed to pull his parents from their bubble. His mother, hand still half hanging in the air from her throw, took a second to focus her eyes on him.

“Aren’t you supposed to be studying?” she asked. Then, taking in the mess at his feet, she added, “What did you do that for? Clean that up.”

Faintly, Reggie wondered if she really didn’t see the blood he could feel trailing down the side of his forehead. Then, he turned and ran.

#

His backpack was light, packed only with some fresh clothes, his toothbrush, and his textbook. His head felt like someone was testing a drill on it, and he hadn’t even taken the time to clean the wound before getting out of the house, so he really had no illusion on getting any studying done. In the spur of the moment, something had just made him take it, and he had been in too much of a hurry to think twice about it. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t very heavy.

Originally, he had planned on going to the studio, where he had stayed a couple of times before, but he abandoned the idea when he remembered that the water wasn’t working and the first aid kit had been used up last Halloween. Alex was already not on the best terms with his parents at the moment, so his house was out, too, and he knew Bobby wasn’t home. It didn’t matter all that much because Reggie would have picked Luke over him any day if it came to asking for help. Luke understood him so much better. The only thing causing him to hesitate at the corner of Luke’s street was the look he knew he would be greeted with. _Why didn’t you say it was getting worse_? it would ask, and Reggie would be left with nothing but to say, _it’s always been this bad._

He could lie, but he really couldn’t. False smiles and pretend-cheer were one thing, a thing he excelled at. He could spread joy all day long, and nobody would ever even imagine something being wrong. He was the Fun Friend. The one to always lighten the mood. Telling a lie was something else entirely. It pulled at his defenses. It made him unsteady. If he went to Luke and Luke asked, Reggie wouldn’t have another choice than the truth. So maybe, going to Luke wasn’t all that good an idea, except he needed to clean his wound, and a place to sleep and a friend, so _desperately_ he needed a friend.

It was nine-thirty at this point, so instead of ringing the doorbell, Reggie threw little stones from the driveway at Luke’s half-open window. In its general direction, rather – Reggie didn’t have a good aim, which was probably good, or he would have given Luke a headwound to match his own. He tried with his spare shirt, balled up, but it didn’t make it up far enough before coming back down and landing unceremoniously in the dust. Finally, he resorted to whisper-yelling Luke’s name. After a minute, the window opened completely and Luke looked out, confused. It took him a little while to spot Reggie in the darkness.

"Reggie? Is that you? What are you doing here?”

“Can I come in? I wasn’t sure if your parents were awake.” It sounded stupid spoken out loud. Luke’s parents might not have been known to stay up late into the night, or to _fight_ late into the night, for that matter, but it was safe to assume the would make it through the evening program without nodding off. If he had rung the doorbell, though, it would have been more than likely been Emily or Mitch opening the door. He could think of a lot of things he would rather do than face either of them right now.

He could almost hear Luke’s frown in his reply. “Sure. I’ll be right down.”

The porch light came on when Reggie waited in front of the door, and a second later, Luke was standing in front of him in loose pants and an ancient shirt that had, like most of his shirts, no sleeves. For a second, watching Luke standing there in the light, Reggie forgot why he was here. Then, Luke’s eyes travelled to his forehead, and his face fell.

“Dude, what happened?” he got out before he grabbed Reggie’s arm and pulled him inside, where he could get a closer look at his friend. Reggie hadn’t looked at the wound, but from the look on Luke’s face, it was probably fatal. Luke had always been a mother hen. As he was wont to do, Reggie responded with humor.

“Got in a gang fight. They only managed to kick my ass because I wasn’t actually with a gang, though.”

When he found Luke’s eyes again, they weren’t smiling. Neither was the rest of him. He looked hurt, like it was him carrying a headwound and not Reggie. He narrowed his eyes at him, fingers hovering over the gash like he was trying to heal it by pure power of will. “There’s nothing funny about this, Reggie.”

“I-“

“Did your parents do this?” Luke spoke in a hushed voice. Reggie couldn’t decide if it was because he didn’t want his parents to overhear, or if he was afraid of the answer. Part of him thought maybe he couldn’t focus on finding an answer because Luke was so awfully close to him. Before he could think of something to say, they made their way upstairs, to Luke’s room, and once there, Reggie let himself fall back onto the bed with a breath of relief.

“No,” he decided, finally. “Well. They didn’t mean to, anyway. It was really more my fault.” He didn’t know why he was still defending either of them, but the words fell from his lips without permission and refused to come back in, no matter how much he wished they would. They weren’t much of a lie, Reggie couldn’t lie, but some part of him knew they weren’t true, either. Personal growth, he supposed. He hadn’t always been so forgiving with himself. Still. For once, he would just like to be honest.

It wasn’t necessary, luckily; from the look on Luke’s face, he didn’t believe a syllable of it. For a moment, they watched each other, Reggie on the bed and Luke standing in front of it, before Luke turned to the bathroom and returned with a washcloth and some bandages.

“Explain how this could possibly be you fault?” After pulling Reggie back into a sitting position, Luke sat next to him and lifted the hand with the cloth in a silent question for permission. Reggie wanted to say he could do it himself, but he let himself have it.

“They were fighting, and I came in to break them up.” He hissed at the burn of the cold water on his split skin. Luke looked at him like he could feel the pain himself. Reggie averted his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see. “She wasn’t aiming, or anything. I don’t even think she really realized she was throwing it. They just wanted to be left alone, I guess. I should have known better.”

“You know that’s not true,” Luke said. The tone of his voice wasn’t much better than the way he had looked at him (the way he probably still looked at him, which Reggie would never find out because he was too much of a coward to meet his eyes), but he couldn’t exactly tell him to stop talking just so he wouldn’t have to hear it. He had known this would happen if he came here. “You couldn’t have known.”

“Yeah, but –“

“No ‘but’s. What did she throw at you, anyway?” At this point, he was finished cleaning, which Reggie was grateful for. He had been able to feel Luke’s breath on his skin, and putting on bandages would require at least require some distance. When Luke sat back, Reggie missed the warmth of his body.

“Just a glass from the table.” Luke froze in his bandaging process. Now he had done it – Luke was officially panicking.

“ _Just_ – Shit, Reggie, what the fuck? Why didn’t you say that? What if you have a concussion? We should get you to the ER.”

“Relax. I’m fine.” Luke gave him a _look_ , which wasn’t entirely unfounded. He _was_ bleeding from the head, and he was pretty sure he would have quite the large bump by morning. His head was still throbbing. He didn’t know what a concussion felt like, but he knew there was a good chance he had one. But the ER would call his parents, and he didn’t want to make Luke even more trouble. “Okay, maybe not _great_ fine, but you don’t have to act like I’m about to die, dork.” This, finally, coaxed a small smile from Luke, and the world was a whole lot closer to right than it had been a second ago. It gave Reggie some courage when he added, “I just needed to get out of there for a bit… It’s pretty stupid. I just. Do you think I could. Uh.”

“Of course! You didn’t think I’d send you back home after this, did you?”

Reggie’s grin turned real at that, and he let Luke finish wrapping up his wound feeling a lot better.

#

Half an hour later, they were lying shoulder to shoulder in the dark, on Luke’s mattress, talking about band practice tomorrow, then school, then, in hushed voices, about their dreams. Playing the Orpheum, getting a record deal – Reggie had always wanted to learn horseback riding. Luke didn’t laugh at him for saying it, no matter how many times he mocked him for his country songs. Lying down, Reggie’s head felt a hundred times better, but in return he got the length of his body, burning at the contact with Luke. He itched to roll onto his side, reach out, play with Luke’s hair. Another thing for his list of unattainable dreams. A stretch of silence settled between them, so long that Reggie almost thought Luke had fallen asleep.

“You know,” Luke finally broke the silence again. Reggie turned his head slightly to look at him, smile in place, eyebrow raised. “You don’t always have to pretend everything is alright. Not for my sake, or anyone else’s. And you don’t need to make excuses for your parents. They don’t get to punish you for their bad marriage.”

Theoretically, Reggie did know that, but to hear Luke say it made it feel much more true. The smile Luke gave him was soft and sad, and it screamed, _I know what you’re doing to yourself, and it breaks my heart_. Reggie returned it in kind and finally turned to his side. The bed creaked lowly as Luke followed his example.

“Thanks,” Reggie said. “You know, for everything. I would have stayed at the studio again, but I figured I’d need the water to clean up.”

Only when Luke frowned at him again did he realize his slip-up. “What do you mean, again? Has this happened before?” 

“No!” he rushed to say. “Nothing like that, I just. Sometimes need to get out.”

“You know you can always come here, right? I don’t want you to be alone when things like this happen.”

The intensity in his look was too much for Reggie, so he took his eyes away from Luke’s and turned them down a little to look at his cheek instead before trying to lighten the mood again. The Fun Friend, he reminded himself. If he wasn’t that, what else did he have to offer in exchange for their friendship? “You’re not going to grow soft on me now, are you?”

Luke huffed a laugh and pushed lightly against his shoulder. The hand stayed there, after. Reggie wanted to keep the weight of it forever. “I’m serious, you ass.”

“I know, it’s creepy.” Reggie took the grin that Luke was obviously failing to fight as a victory and allowed himself a little piece of honesty. “I just didn’t want to bother you. You have enough going on with your own parents.”

For a moment, Luke didn’t say anything, which was enough reason for Reggie to panic. He should have known better than to say that. Now, Luke was going to feel bad about himself because Luke was just _like_ that, and then he would slowly start to resent him because of his own misguided guilt, and _then_ he would hate Reggie forever. Or he would just realize that Reggie really _was_ bothering him, and he really didn’t have time for this, and then he’d throw him out in the streets. And hate him forever because he really _was_ being selfish in going to Luke for help when Luke had his own problems to deal with. As these thoughts ran through his head, and he tried his hardest to swallow them past the lump in his throat, he barely noticed Luke shuffling closer.

“Bro,” Luke said, his face serious again. “You never bother me.”

Reggie chuckled, a little bit too wetly. He hadn’t realized how close he was to tears, but he had been holding them in for so long that it was getting near impossible to hold himself together for much longer. If Luke noticed it under his crooked smile, he didn’t say anything, which Reggie was infinitely grateful for. “You do get pretty bothered by my country songs.”

“Only a little. Some of them are actually kind of sweet.”

The thing was, they were so close that there was no way that Luke didn’t know what he was doing to him. He must have noticed, the way Reggie’s breath hitched at his words, the way he tried to control ever last one of them to the point of shaking. The way his heart beat against his chest. The heat that must have radiated from his cheeks. Then again, Luke had done a pretty good job at missing the signs throughout the past year, so who was to say what he did or did not notice? The others might say he was the slow one, but here, he surely wasn’t. He swallowed again to take the weight from his voice as he replied. “Knew you secretly liked them.”

Luke kept the smile, but he didn’t reply for a while. The silence stretched on, and it was a frail thing, building in the two or three inches of distance that remained between them. The hand still resting on his shoulder weighed a ton. Reggie wanted to say something more, but he was lost for words, all out of icebreakers. He hadn’t thought it possible. His stomach held a tempest, and his brain was growing fuzzy. This, as much as he would have liked to tell himself otherwise, was not the concussion. His hands, as they always did, ached to reach out and touch, but he knew he wasn’t allowed. Even if Luke had noticed, if he realized what it meant when Reggie looked at him like this, the fact that he had said nothing about it only proved he didn’t see him in the same way. He should be thankful, he supposed – at least, in that case, that would mean Luke didn’t see him differently for it.

Again, it was Luke who finally broke the silence. When he did, his voice was lower than before, so close to a whisper that had Reggie not been so close, he wouldn’t have understood him. He wasn’t sure he did, now. “I know this isn’t the best time,” Luke began. For the first time since Reggie had appeared outside his window, he sounded reluctant. “But I feel like you need to hear this.”

He didn’t continue for a little, seemingly trying to figure out what to say next. Reggie, confused by the strange change in mood, inquired in the same tone of voice. “Hear what?”

“Just… I think you don’t know how important you are. And that’s shit because you are so awesome. You’re so talented and so kind, and honestly, you’re one of the bravest people I know, but you can’t see that because you love yourself so little.” Reggie watched Luke as he spoke, and with every word, his chest grew tighter. He had really believed nobody had been able to see past his easy smiles and jokes, but maybe Luke paid more attention than he had anticipated. When he continued, Luke’s voice was even quieter, but his lips stretched into a tiny smile. “I just want you to know that – well, that for however long it takes for you to see that. To love yourself. That I’ll love you for the both of us in the meantime.”

If Reggie had thought himself lost for words before, he didn’t know what he was now. Surely, this couldn’t mean what he wanted for it to mean so badly – but it _sounded_ so much like it did. “I –“

“You don’t need to say anything,” Luke said. The smile was still there, but Reggie could tell he was working hard for it to stay. “I don’t expect you to – you know. This doesn’t have to change anything between us. I just needed you to know.”

 _Use your words, Reggie_ , said the voice in his head that he assigned to the last functioning fraction of his brain. _Never a better moment than this for some honesty._ Unfortunately, he was quite out of practice, so he blurted, “But it does change _everything_.”

The smile wavered some more. It was like a building, seconds from collapsing. Luke averted his eyes, and Reggie realized what he had wanted to say, and how it must have come out. Not before Luke pulled back, taking his hand to leave Reggie’s skin cold and yearning.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and the sound of his voice receding made Reggie struggle to breathe. God, he was messing this up.

“ _No_ , no, I mean. I _want_ it to change something. Because, uhm. I’m… I feel _that_ , too.”

Luke’s eyes snapped back to his. He was still out of reach, but Reggie could see a glint of something in them that made him think maybe he could manage this. Maybe he didn’t have to be the Fun Friend for Luke. Maybe it was enough, here, in the dark of this night, to just be himself. “You do?”

“Yeah. I’m in …” Maybe he couldn’t manage this, after all. Some words had been locked up inside of him for so long they were afraid of the outside world. _Come on_ , he begged his heart. _You’re safe with him._ Somehow, it believed him. “I’m in love with you.”

Before he could even begin to worry about having misread everything, about _maybe he just meant it platonically and now_ you’ve _made it weird_ , Luke had already pulled him closer and into a hug. Reggie was pretty sure they were both crying a little, but nobody would ever have to know that.

When they finally pulled away, just a hand’s width, Reggie let his left rise and card its fingers through Luke’s hair. Maybe not so unattainable, after all.

“You couldn’t have just led with that, hm?” Luke asked after a while. His fingers ghosted down the side of Reggie’s face, like he was something precious that he was afraid to break if he touched it properly. Something grew Reggie’s chest at the thought until he believed he might burst with it.

He laughed, faintly. “Sorry.”

“Hm. Not enough,” Luke said through a growing, mischievous grin. “I know a way you can make up for it, though.”

“You do?”

“Kiss me,” Luke said. Like most things he did, it took Reggie’s breath away, but he managed a relatively casual smile and an only slightly stuttered reply.

“I guess I can manage that,” he said. He closed the short distance remaining between them.


End file.
